


forward motion

by isles



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, they're adults and it's complicated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-11
Updated: 2014-12-11
Packaged: 2018-03-01 02:21:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2755985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isles/pseuds/isles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three years after their breakup, Jean and Marco meet again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	forward motion

Marco doesn’t remember why they broke up.

He knows why they fought that night, and the days and weeks that came before, he knows when and how it happened. But he can’t pinpoint what it was, exactly, that led them to the conclusion that they needed to go their separate ways, right then and there, no going back. That there was no other way to deal with it. He doesn't remember what made Jean pack his bags and accept the position he'd been offered in Trost.

He remembers every single day of the week after. He remembers Jean not showing his face around Jinae for three years.

He didn’t care about any of that last night when he saw Jean again, when Jean kissed him brainless, when somehow he thought that sleeping together would just be a fun thing, no commitment, no consequences. Instead it was brilliant, it was maddening and nostalgic and like coming up for air after years underwater. It was all the things it shouldn’t have been.

Yet here they are, having sex again in the morning, slow and intimate, breathing in each other's mouths, hands in each other's hair like no time has passed at all since that one night three years ago, and Marco can't imagine going back from this.

But then Jean leaves for work an hour later and Marco boards his train back to Jinae, and somehow, he does. Life goes on. Marco hates that he can feel like he will fall apart at the seams and melt to the floor, but then he goes to sleep, wakes up, goes to work, and somehow stays intact. The world doesn’t stop moving. It's not very poetic. If he goes long enough without seeing him, he will get used to it.

 

*

 

Marco sees him again in March.

He's visiting their branch in Trost on a business trip, because he’s that guy now, it’s going to be a frequent thing, and Mina says Jean's dating someone. Jean comes in and gives Marco a smile, small and private, and all Marco can do is look for hickeys on his neck, for lipstick smudges, for any sign that Jean is seeing somebody.

He doesn't find anything. It’s been a month, it should be easier, but it isn't.

Jean is on him the second they're alone in his office, loosening his tie and his belt and kissing him, soft and hot and focused. Marco slides into it, breathless.

He can't quite bring himself to say _we shouldn't_ , but he thinks it.

He wants to ask if it’s true, if someone is waiting for Jean at his place, if he has dinner reservations with someone he shares more than his bed with, but he doesn't. He has no right.

 

*

 

Jean texts him when Marco is back in Jinae. _how are you?_ it says, and its painfully polite. Everything is so stiff and strange and terrible when they're not having sex.

Marco doesn't text back.

 

*

 

He hates Trost.

He hates that Jean says his name in bed, hates it and loves it, and they're at Jean's apartment, and there are no traces of anyone else, no second toothbrush, no makeup, no clothes that don’t belong. He hates that he’s looking for them.

“Your boyfriend?” Marco asks when Jean gets a phone call from someone called Tim, and he knows he shouldn't, but the need to know is stronger.

“What if it was?” Jean says, a glint of something in his eye.

“Your problem, I guess,” Marco says, not looking at him.

“Fuck you.”

They have sex on the floor that night. Jean kisses him like he has something to prove.

Marco doesn't know what it is. He hates Trost. Hates it with every fibre of his being.

 

*

 

Marco can think of two possibilities. Either Jean isn’t telling him because it’s true, or it’s not and Jean just doesn’t think it’s important to this thing they have, whatever it is.

Marco can’t read either one into the way Jean smiles at him. Maybe Jean should play poker. Maybe Marco’s just an idiot, too focused on the curl of Jean’s lips to pay attention to anything else.

 

*

 

It’s mid July and Jean’s skin is hot everywhere they touch. His cheeks and lips are pink and his eyes are alive with something familiar as his limbs tighten around Marco and he gasps for air against his shoulder.

“I—” Marco says, almost the truth. He buries his face in Jean’s hair, lets the faint scent of shampoo envelop him for a moment, and does not say anything at all until he comes.

 

*

 

“Do you have work today?” Jean asks, munching on a breadroll.

“No,” Marco says. His eyes are trained on the tabletop. “It’s sunday.”

“Let’s go have lunch,” Jean says.

Marco wants to say no, but he doesn’t, which is how he ends up on the passenger seat in the car Jean drove away from their old apartment in Jinae. It smells like air freshener. It smells nothing like it used to. Jean looks at him from the corner of his eyes and says nothing, and the air inside Marco’s lungs seems to compress.

They’re at a fancy restaurant in midtown that they’re dressed way too casually for. Jean’s hair is a mess, and Marco can’t stop staring.

“I missed you,” Jean says after a few bites and swallows, and Marco can’t think of anything but who else Jean must have brought to this place.

Jean looks down, scrapes the soft insides out of his garlic bread. “When do you have to be back in Jinae?”

Marco can feel his expression go soft. “Tomorrow at noon.”

“I want to cook you dinner,” Jean says, a determined set to his mouth. Under the table, he rests his foot against Marco’s, and Marco lets him.

 

*

 

It’s too much.

Jean’s hair is wet from the shower, and he’s soft when he reaches for Marco, climbs back into bed smelling like aftershave. He lies down on top of him and circles his wrists with his hands, starts to trail hot, open-mouthed kisses down Marco’s throat as he slides a thigh between his legs.

Marco needs to end this.

“Jean,” he says, and it sounds like his death sentence. Maybe this is the way. All in. “I love you,” he says, the words half stuck in his throat. “I’m really sorry.”

“You're a fucking idiot,” Jean says, breathless, kisses it into his skin.

That night when Marco leaves, Jean hands him a key to his apartment.


End file.
